From Bottom 10 to Top 20

Lou Holtz recorded his first win at NC State against Syracuse on Sept. 16, 1972.
(Photo by Ed Caram)

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© Tim Peeler, 2017

On opposite sidelines were two future College Football Hall of Fame coaches, one nearing the end of his superstar-producing career and one just starting at his first big-time school.

And it was the young one who played old-school football.

On Sept. 16, 1972, Syracuse came to Carter Stadium to face NC State in the first meeting between the future ACC rivals.

The Orangemen, as they were then called, were led by legendary coach Ben Schwartzwalder, who was famous for churning out running backs like Jim Brown, Floyd Little, Ernie Davis and Larry Csonka. He had been at the upstate New York school since 1949 and was a legend among fellow coaches.

The Wolfpack was led by a brash peanut of a coach named Lou Holtz, who had come from William & Mary to take over the program from interim coach Al Michaels, a one-year fix following the abrupt retirement of longtime coach Earle Edwards. Michaels led the Pack to a 3-8 record in his lone season, and returned to his previous position as defensive coordinator under Holtz.

Edwards, who had played at Penn State, and Schwartzwalder, who had played at West Virginia, were longtime friends, coaching colleagues and past presidents of the American Football Coaches Association.

Steve Harvey began his syndicated Bottom 20 in 1972.

There was little doubt about who would win the nighttime contest at Carter Stadium. Oddsmakers listed Syracuse as much as a 24-point favorite. Los Angeles Times sportswriter Steve Harvey had started a syndicated feature in the preseason called “The Bottom 10,” in which he listed NC State No. 8 among the worst teams in college football heading into his inaugural season rankings.

That didn’t change following the Wolfpack’s season-opening 24-24 tie at Carter Stadium against Maryland, which was No. 3 in Harvey’s rankings.

So everyone thought it would be Syracuse in a landslide.

Except that it wasn’t.

In a stunning upset for the time, Holtz recorded his first victory as NC State’s coach with an overwhelming 43-20 victory over the Orangemen, as three different quarterbacks led the Wolfpack on scoring drives.

Syracuse coach Ben Schwartzwalder.

“They licked our butts,” Schwartzwalder said after the game.

Holtz hit the Orangemen with twin offensive platoons, switching back and forth with separate 11-man lineups, one led by junior Bruce Shaw and the other led by freshman quarterback Dave Buckey. They switched on nearly every other possession throughout the game. Then, late in the game, third-stringer George Clements came in to lead the Wolfpack to its final touchdown.

Shaw started and had the better passing day, completing four of his six passes for 113 yards. He also had a couple of miscues under center against a celebrated Syracuse defense that included All-America tackle Joe Ehrmann. His fumble at the Pack’s 29-yard line in the first quarter set up the game’s first score.

Buckey, an 18-year-old, 165-pound freshman from Akron, Ohio, had a breakout game, making him (and twin brother Don) one of the poster children for the return of freshman eligibility to college athletics. Later that season, as Dave and Don helped the Wolfpack win six of its final seven regular-season games, they became the only NC State football players to ever be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Dave and Don Buckey were Oct. 30, 1972, cover boys.

Buckey, in just his second game in a Wolfpack uniform, rushed for a touchdown, threw for another and set up a third with a 57-yard third-quarter run. He hit nine of his 15 passes for an even 100 yards and ran for a game-high 110 yards on 11 carries, outdistancing all four of the Wolfpack’s talented running backs, Willie Burden, Roland Hooks, Stan Fritts and Charley Young.

“I had played a little in the first game,” said Dave Buckey, who still lives in Raleigh some 45 years later. “I knew I would play a little more in this one because Coach Holtz said so that week. Syracuse was a big, solid football team, sort of like traditional Big Ten teams.

“They were a lot bigger and stronger than we were.”

They weren’t, however, deeper on either side of the ball. The Orangemen did have some injuries on offense, including to its starting tailback, and Schwartzwalder had suspended three defensive players for their involvement in taking a rug out of another student’s dormitory room, leaving them back in Syracuse for the game. Perhaps that was an indication of his confidence in recording the road win.

“Our second offense, probably got 25-30 percent of the playing time, which was exactly the way Coach Holtz planned it,” said Don Buckey, who caught one pass for 17 yards against Syracuse. “It was a little bit of a shocker to us that he did that in the opener, but after that we expected it.

“We had great respect for Syracuse, but we did not quite know what to expect from a competitive standpoint. It turned into somewhat of a runaway. After that, we were all believers in Coach Holtz, his staff and our system.”

Dave Buckey certainly left an impression on Schwartzwalder.

“I can’t believe he is only a freshman,” said the coach, who died in 1993. “He has so much poise.”

Holtz, not atypically, was not pleased after the program-building victory. He thought his two offenses had too many mistakes.

“Yes, we’ve turned the corner, but I have found that every time you turn a corner, there’s always another one waiting,” Holtz said. “We won and I’m very pleased, but I really didn’t think we had crispness on offense that we need.

“However, it is a great feeling to win our first game here at North Carolina State.”

He also did not like the paltry crowd of just 27,100 for the nighttime contest.

“I hope more people come to our games,” he said afterwards. “I want to fill the stadium.”

NC State beat West Virginia 49-13 in the 1972 Peach Bowl.
(Photo by Ed Caram.)

Even though the Pack lost its next two games, at North Carolina (34-33) and at Georgia (28-22), it finished the season on a roll, winning seven of its final eight games, including a 49-13 throttling of Bobby Bowden-coached West Virginia in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta.

Pack finished the season with a 9-3-1 record and was No. 17 in the final Associated Press poll, completing the unlikely turnaround from preseason Bottom 10 to end-of-season Top 20.

Holtz took his team to three more bowl games over the next three seasons and spent at least some time ranked in the Top 20 in each of the next three years, including a No. 11 finish in the final poll of 1974, the highest AP finish in school history.

Holtz lost just one home game while at NC State, a 30-22 loss to Wake Forest in 1975, posting a 20-1-1 record at Carter Stadium.

And most of the time, in what was truly the Golden Age of Wolfpack athletics, all the seats were full.